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Canonical Shares Top 10 Linux Snaps of 2018 (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

One of the most refreshing aspects of Linux in 2018 was the popularity of Snaps. Canonical revealed that the containerized packages have been a smashing success. Today, the Ubuntu-maker highlights what it feels are the top 10 Snaps of 2018. From a report: "With 2018 drawing to a close, and many of us spending with family during the holiday season, I thought we'd take a look back over some of our favourite Linux applications in the Snap Store. Some have been in the store for over a year, and a few landed only recently, but they're all great," says Alan Pope, Canonical. [...] Canonical shares the Top 10 Snaps: Spotify, Slack, VLC, Nextcloud, Android Studio, Discord, Plex Media Server, Xonotic, Notepad++, and Shotcut.

6 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The annoying thing with snaps is that it's basically going back in time in away. If you have 350 Snap apps then you likely have 350 different copies of the exact same libraries, many which are old and insecure. If a library needs updating then instead of updating it once on your machine, you need to update it 350 times assuming each Snap package gets updated in a timely matter, but they don't.

  2. Not Linux. Can't have it both ways. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They seem to confuse something here.

    Snaps are a concept that deliberately chose the opposite approach to the Linux/Unix one. Namely the mobile OS one.

    Mainly because those who came up with it, clearly came from a Windows world, and are utterly clueless about Linux and things like good package managers (that allow multiple versions of the same package to be installed at the same time).

    Of course they can still do that, if they like to teach themselves a lesson of suffering.

    They can't, however, call things like Snaps, systemd, and Ubuntu as a whole "Linux". As it not only misses, but actively completely rejects the very point of Linux. If you want that, you can aswell just use macOS. Instead of ruining Linux for those who actually need to do work on it.

    So srop redefining the term "Linux" to mean "Apple OS clone", Canonical!

  3. It's still a fairly bad idea by Casandro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First of all Linux has this great thing called a Distribution where all the software you'll likely ever need is just included and can be installed via a package manager.You don't need snap to install VLC as it's already included in the repositories.

    Secondly Linux isn't application centric, it's data centric. You exchange data and operate on it via programs you already have. Your set of programs is fairly fixed. It's not like mobile OSes where every external service requires its own app.

    Thirdly sandboxes don't work. At best they only keep you from having functionality you want, at worst people will rely on it somehow protecting their system which will give rise to malware exploiting loopholes in the sandboxes. (i.e. Cryptominers, Rowhammer, Spectre, Meltdown, etc)

    In short it's a fairly bad idea. It tries to reproduce one of the worst aspects of Windows, namely that you ship around self-contained exe files which get executed on a double click.

    1. Re:It's still a fairly bad idea by pz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We are constantly reinventing the wheel.

      https://xkcd.com/2044/

      Each generation of programmers seems to think they have more insight than the previous, but ends up repeating the same mistakes.

      --

      Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    2. Re:It's still a fairly bad idea by sad_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "But this gets you an old version of VLC. For the latest version you have to either compile from source, or (possibly) switch to the unstable repository. It is a pain - the snap solves this problem thereby making running VLC on Linux easy. It is a necessary solution if we are ever going to see Linux used by non-IT people."

      i don't think people care about that, they get VLC from the repo and it works, great, as long as it keeps working (and i don't see a reason why it should suddenly stop working), why bother with new versions (security updates should still be provided through normal repo updates)? You think people care about this? just look at all those outdated flash, java, ... installations on windows and it becomes clear they could care less.

      --
      On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
  4. Snaps are crap by reanjr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bloated crapware that doesn't properly integrate with your desktop? No thanks...